We all have heard of the mid-life crisis; the moment usually in your 50s where you overthink what your life is like at that moment and panicking over the fact you haven’t accomplished all you set out to do. During the mid-life crisis, there is the joke of purchasing a motorcycle or a boat, and in my parents’ case, a beach home. We all have grown up with the understanding that we will all have this moment of doubt and uncertainty. But no one really tells us about the crisis that happens before the mid-life; the quarter-life crisis.
A quarter-life crisis is similar to a mid-life in which you are stressing over the decisions and path you are taking in life and can go to extremes to remedy any type of void. The only difference between the two is the ages it effects. For mid-life it tends to happen around the ages of 45-60 while the quarter-life typically around the age of 25 but it can start even younger than that.
People tend to not consider the quarter-life crisis, chalking it up to young people complaining or being too sensitive to handle the world. But why is that? Why do we acknowledge the mid-life crisis, even if it has been considered a joke for some time, but dismiss the validity of the quarter-life crisis? Is it a part of the repeating cycle of looking down on the younger generation as the older one ages?
For the answer to that question, I cannot say. I don’t speak for all older generations and as a young person myself, my views can be seen as bias. But as a young person, and as someone who just turned 25, I can speak to the stress of the quarter-life crisis.
I have been joking for the past couple of years that I have been in the crisis even though I wasn’t even 25 at the time. Mainly to make light of my depression and anxiety that focuses on the future and not being able to control it. This is the mindset of the crisis. Usually, at 25 you are either fresh out of college or have been out of college for some time and settled into a job or even if you didn’t go to school, you are working on a job or career and you reach a point of stagnation. You contemplate if this is what you want out of life or worse, you don’t know what you want out of life. Your entire life you were setup to know what you want to go to school for, what you want to be when you are older, if you will be married and have kids, the whole nine yards. But when you get to 25 and you have none of those things or plans change, you look back on your youth and deem yourself a failure.
But you are not a failure. Let me be the first to say, you are not alone in this feeling. As I mentioned, I am 25 years old and I still haven’t found love, decided if I want children or not, or even know what I want to do career wise even after school. It’s always best to remind yourself that at this stage of your life, you are only at least a third of the way through. You could live to be in your 90s and even then you would still not be able to do everything you thought you wanted to do. At that point you have so much time to reflect and carve your own path. It will be difficult, but try to not to stress it.
The expectations of the previous generation arenot our expectations, and so the goals they have will cause us somestress. But just remember you are your own person and we live in a timewhere it is okay to wait. Take a deep breath, trust your instincts,and by the end of it, you will be just fine.
